Via Arizona Daily Star, a report on a speedy new biopsy scanner that can quickly pick up cancers:
Now, thanks to a new diagnostic imaging system developed by a Tucson company called DMetrix Inc., a woman can get her test results in less than four hours.
The DMetrix Virtual Slide Imaging System was used for the first time on May 5, when Carol Peaks of Tucson had a surgical biopsy of a lump in her left breast…
The key component of the system is an “array microscope,” an assembly of 80 tiny lens systems arranged in staggered rows on a transparent disc the size of a quarter, about 1 inch in diameter. Atop these “teeny-tiny microscopes,” to borrow Weinstein’s not-so-technical lingo, sits a 24-megapixel camera designed by DMetrix. By comparison, most popular digital cameras have a resolution of 3 to 5 megapixels.
The assembly, used in conjunction with a DMetrix Ultrarapid Virtual Slide Processor, scans a tissue sample and produces a precise diagnostic image with a resolution of up to 54,000 dots per inch, about 700 times that of a picture made on a home printer.
The process typically takes less than a minute.
The key component of the system is an “array microscope,” an assembly of 80 tiny lens systems arranged in staggered rows on a transparent disc the size of a quarter, about 1 inch in diameter. Atop these “teeny-tiny microscopes,” to borrow Weinstein’s not-so-technical lingo, sits a 24-megapixel camera designed by DMetrix. By comparison, most popular digital cameras have a resolution of 3 to 5 megapixels.The company website says the DMetrix system was developed in close collaboration with pathologists. I bet these same docs will be less likely to help next time, if they find themselves rendered obsolete by a fast automated screener they helped build.
Come to think of it, DMetrix sounds a lot like ‘The Matrix’…
More at DMetrix…